Pussy Galore gets her claws out! Honor Blackman on how Sean Connery is a hypocrite and why she turned down a CBE

She was an intrinsic part of Christmas Day afternoons — igniting the hormones and troubling the pre-pubescent thoughts of a million boys throughout the Sixties and Seventies as we settled down, Quality Street tin on lap, for the requisite Bond film.

The ridiculous double entendre of her name — Pussy Galore — may have been lost on the younger ones but she was, for us, the perfect woman. A high-kicking Grace Kelly. A golden goddess who could beat you in an arm wrestle.

Is it any wonder that grown men still fawn in the presence of Honor Blackman, 50 years after she starred alongside Sean Connery in the third 007 film, Goldfinger?

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Troubling the pre-pubescent thoughts of a million boys: Honor Blackman has lost none of her charm at 89

It is with some disappointment, therefore, that I learn this sexiest of Bond villainesses and conquests, who will be 90 next birthday, gave up wrestling with men many, many years ago,

‘Oh, I couldn’t bear to live with anyone,’ she exclaims, emphasising the word ‘bear’ with theatrical relish in that deep, husky voice that seems to coat words in dark chocolate.

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‘I’m so selfish. I do exactly what I want when I want. So no, there’s no man. Would I like there to be? No. I love men, love being with them. But at my age there aren’t a lot of them about.’

Honor’s still a delicious mix of scary and sexy. Dressed in gold pumps, stylish jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Catwoman, she is whip-smart — with a sharp and sometimes unforgiving wit — and quite fierce, suffering neither fools nor foolish questions at all gladly.

I feel sorry for the civil service functionary who phoned her a few years ago with the happy news that she had been recommended for a CBE. She turned the honour down flat.

'I must be dreaming': As Pussy she passed into legend in 007's Goldfinger (1964), starring with Sean Connery

Delicious mix: An East London girl, she turned down an honour and is scathing of Connery's decision to accept

‘They ring you beforehand to ask if you’d like to accept, and I think they were quite shocked when I declined,’ she says. ‘But since I’m a republican I thought it would be somewhat hypocritical to pop up to the Palace.

‘Not like Sean (Connery), who accepts a knighthood but never comes here, doesn’t pay tax here and supported a yes vote in the referendum.’ A sigh. ‘But I don’t think he thinks deeply about politics.’

Honor has nothing but praise for Connery’s Bond, however. ‘He is, I think, the sexiest creature I have ever met. And he was fun, too. If you’re going to mess about with somebody, he was a good person to mess about with.’ Not that there was any question of ‘messing about’ off-set however. Dalliances with leading men, married or otherwise, were never Honor’s style.

Unusual childhood: She was tough, but things turned with an unusual birthday present - elocution lessons

She was born in August 1925, in Plaistow, East London, as were her parents and their parents before them. Honor is a proper East Ender, whose father was a World War I veteran and a minor civil servant, who was passed over repeatedly for promotion because, he thought, of his Cockney accent.

He was a tough man, who showed his four children negligible physical affection and was not averse to hitting them. Yet he was desperate for them to have the opportunities he hadn’t.

For Honor’s 16th birthday, he offered her the choice between a bicycle and elocution lessons. She laughs at the memory. ‘God help me if I’d chosen the bicycle,’ she says.

Those lessons were the making of her. ‘My teacher’s name was Irene Cockin, and I was so innocent that I had no idea why people laughed at that. Anyway, she was wonderful.

‘She introduced me to poetry and plays and convinced my father that I had some talent. So I went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, though only one evening a week, which was all we could afford.

‘By then I’d left school and was working as a filing clerk, but it was wartime and I also rode a motorbike, carrying blood between hospitals. When I look back, there were doodlebugs and everything, which one couldn’t hear on the bike — not that one cared at that age.’

Her mother was horrified at the risks she was taking but Honor had always known how to look after herself, having shared her brother Ken’s boxing lessons when he was trained to fight back against school bullies. ‘We had a pillow hung from the doorjamb, and I developed a pearler of a right uppercut,’ she says, smiling sweetly.

‘I knocked out two boys, one in the playground, the other in his front garden. I think my father was quietly proud.’

However, she also used it against him. When she came home one day wearing bright red lipstick, he struck her. She promptly struck him back.

Joker: But Honor had always known how to look after herself, having shared her brother Ken’s boxing lessons when he was trained to fight back against school bullies. 'I developed a pearler of a right uppercut,’ she says

Older and wiser: Her first marriage turned out to be a terrible mistake, as her husband was intensely jealous, once rushing into the street to confront the actor Lorne Greene, who had simply given Honor a lift home

‘You know, one was used to being hit in those days,’ she says insouciantly, seemingly in his defence.

Not long afterwards, she met and quickly married Bill Sankey, a businessman 12 years older than her, who was domineering — like her father.

‘Bill was a great big creature and fun. He could drink more than anyone I’ve ever met, without it having the slightest effect,’ Honor says.

But the marriage turned out to be a terrible mistake. Sankey was intensely jealous, once rushing into the street to confront the actor Lorne Greene, who had simply given Honor a lift home.

I passionately wanted children, and so we went to a perfectly lovely adoption society - though they grill you to ribbons to see if there is any reason you shouldn't be parents. It wasn’t a question of what we wanted. When a child came along that they thought suitable, that was our child

And Sankey forced her to emigrate to Canada, against her wishes, and quietly relieved their joint bank account of all her earnings.

‘Stupid idiot,’ she murmurs, of herself — and for all her poise, I notice her stories are peppered with self- lacerating judgments: an ‘idiot’ here, a ‘stupid idiot’ there.

By the time they split up, with Honor in London, refusing to accompany him back to Canada, she had lost all her money and most of her confidence.

‘I really took a dip,’ she says, which is putting it mildly. In fact she had a nervous breakdown, which began as debilitating stage fright and ended with a three-week stint in a psychiatric hospital. She was still ill when, in 1962, she ‘slapped a face on’ and went to audition for the part of the leather-clad Cathy Gale in a new TV series, The Avengers, encouraged by fellow actor Maurice Kaufmann, who had just become her second husband (they would eventually divorce in 1975).

That part, which required the routine beating up of heavies, changed everything for her — empowering women and tantalising men and leading to a Penguin paperback: Honor Blackman’s Book Of Self-Defence.

Yet Cathy’s legacy is not an entirely positive one. Honor now suffers from scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, which she ascribes to all the judo moves she had to do in The Avengers.

‘You know the stomach throw? Where you take the lapels and put your foot in his stomach and over he goes? Well, you bang down on to the bottom of your spine, and I don’t have much bottom. And it was on cement, you know.’

However, The Avengers made her a household name and got her the part of Pussy Galore, the leader of an all-woman flying display team. A sex symbol was born.

Working her magic: She and her second husband Maurice Kaufmann adopted two children before their divorce

City girl: Honor sees plenty of her children and four grandchildren and says they constantly badger her to go and live near them in Sussex, but she chooses to remain in her fashionable part of West London

Honor says: ‘We had a lovely Australian publicist on The Avengers who used to say, “Honor, there’s some fan mail I just can’t show you.”’ It wasn’t just men who adored her, either. ‘There were some lesbians who lived near me and used to pop notes through my letterbox, asking if I’d go to their parties with a whip.’ Goodness knows what they made of Pussy.

The advantage with those early Bond films was that they were all original Ian Fleming stories and they took time to build up characters and relationships.

‘The trouble today, I think, is that they try to rival those Bourne Identity things, tearing over rooftops. Which is exciting in a way but not nearly as exciting as the battle of wits that went on in Goldfinger.’

The Sixties ended up being a magical decade for Blackman. Partly because of Cathy and Pussy but mostly because of Lottie and Barnaby, the two babies she and Kaufmann adopted.

‘I could have children — but there are two sides to it, aren’t there?’ she says. ‘I passionately wanted children, and so we went to a perfectly lovely adoption society — though they grill you to ribbons to see if there is any reason you shouldn’t be parents. It wasn’t a question of what we wanted. When a child came along that they thought suitable, that was our child.

Icon: To her grandchildren she is 'Nonna', but to the rest of us she is, well, Cathy Gale or Pussy Galore. But mostly she is Honor Blackman, still beautiful, still a beguiling mix of vulnerability and toughness

‘We didn’t know when it would be, or what sex. There just comes that magical day when they haul you into their office and this little thing is given to you.

‘Lottie . . . well, I shouldn’t talk about her past but it wasn’t clever. Even as a tiny thing she didn’t want to be held, and it can’t be easy for a child that’s been banged about a bit very early. Barnaby’s background wasn’t like that. But I haven’t stopped either of them from finding out [about their biological roots]. In fact I gave them the information they needed.

‘I think it’s a perfectly natural thing. Some people are astonished that you would wish it for them, but they both know.’

Honor sees plenty of her children and four grandchildren and says they constantly badger her to go and live near them in Sussex. But she chooses to remain in her fashionable part of West London.

‘They are lovely,’ she says. ‘And I do love being on holiday with them. Lottie and Barnaby have two children each, all between nine and 11. The eldest, Oscar, has gone to secondary school in long trousers and all that. I can’t bear it. I want them to stay little.’

To her grandchildren she is ‘Nonna’, but to the rest of us she is, well, Cathy Gale or Pussy Galore.

But mostly she is the iconic Honor Blackman, still beautiful, still a beguiling mix of vulnerability and toughness, and still capable, I fancy, as she takes one last genteel sip of hot chocolate, of deploying that ‘pearler of a right uppercut’.

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Honor Blackman on how Sean Connery is a hypocrite and why she turned down a CBE